Tag: mass surveillance

PimEyes Says Meta Glasses Integration Could Have ‘Irreversible Consequences’

Two Harvard students made headlines after converting Meta’s smart glasses into a device that automatically captures people’s faces with facial recognition and runs them through face search engines. One of the companies providing the face search function, PimEyes, is not too happy about it.

AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio released a video of themselves using the smart glasses to identify people on the street and look up their personal information through services such as PimEyes. The students used the integrated camera on Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses to capture live video through Instagram and ran it through their software I-XRAY.

“We stream the video from the glasses straight to Instagram and have a computer program monitor the stream,” Nguyen says in the video. “We use AI to detect when we’re looking at someone’s face, then we scour the internet to find more pictures of that person. Finally, we use data sources like online articles and voter registration databases to figure out their name, phone number, home address and relatives names and it’s all fed back to an app we wrote on our phone.”

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India plans to launch a pilot project for facial recognition at airports for foreign nationals

Digi Yatra is a mobile-based platform that allows air travellers to store their ID and travel documents securely. The platform uses facial recognition to eliminate the need for physical ID checks, streamlining the airport experience, according to Hindustan Times.

Digi Yatra is currently only available for domestic flights within India but a pilot project for international visitors will be launched next year.

India has not yet launched an e-passport, which contains an embedded microchip storing biometric data, such as fingerprints or facial recognition.  So, a pilot project of Digi Yatra will be conducted with the help of foreign passengers who hold electronic passports (“e-passports”).

“Countries within the European Union, Singapore, etc have launched e-passports. A significant number of their citizens hold such passports. So, the pilot project will be done with their involvement,” Digi Yatra Foundation CEO Suresh Khadakbhavi said on Tuesday.

The Digi Yatra Foundation is a not-for-profit private company which is a consortium of five private airports that have a combined shareholding of 74%, and the Airports Authority of India holds the remaining 26%.

The company describes its Digi Yatra as [emphasis added]:

Digi Yatra is a Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt. of India led initiative to make air traveller’s/ passenger’s journey seamless, hassle-free and Health-Risk-Free. The Digi Yatra process uses the single token of face biometrics to digitally validate the Identity, Travel, Health or any other data that is needed for the purpose of enabling air travel.Frequently Asked Questions, What is Digi Yatra? Digi Yatra Foundation

The pilot project will initially be implemented between two countries and will enable international visitors to use facial recognition as a boarding pass, with the Digi Yatra platform being made accessible in both regional and international languages.

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The Corporate Transparency Act — The Most Aggressive Domestic Spying Program Since the Patriot Act

At a press conference on August 12th, 1986, President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

These words reflected the general and growing distrust of the government.

Today, this quote could be reinterpreted to say, “I’m from the federal government, give up your personal data, and as long as you don’t step out of line, we will keep you safe”. Not as snappy but truer today than ever before.

By the end of this year, every citizen in the United States will be required to hand over the personal data of their small business, S-corp, LLC, HoA, Board of Directors, Trustees, Real Estate Holdings, etc., to the Federal Government’s law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) under the Department of Treasury. Welcome to the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).

President Trump saw this act for what it was, just another way for the Federal Government to target the middle class and their political enemies. President Trump vetoed this unconstitutional power grab in 2019, but it’s back.

In an unprecedented act of overreach, the Federal Government is moving to aggressively collect data on all small business owners, who make up the backbone of the U.S. economy, for reasons that seem “murky” at best.

The sole goal appears to be setting up yet another new database of citizens to monitor, observe, and punish. The Feds are moving to implement the CTA at warp speed, and in seeming total secrecy, as the majority of the millions of small business owners in the United States have no idea this law even exists.

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License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars

At 8:22 am on December 4 last year, a car traveling down a small residential road in Alabama used its license-plate-reading cameras to take photos of vehicles it passed. One image, which does not contain a vehicle or a license plate, shows a bright red “Trump” campaign sign placed in front of someone’s garage. In the background is a banner referencing Israel, a holly wreath, and a festive inflatable snowman.

Another image taken on a different day by a different vehicle shows a “Steelworkers for Harris-Walz” sign stuck in the lawn in front of someone’s home. A construction worker, with his face unblurred, is pictured near another Harris sign. Other photos show Trump and Biden (including “Fuck Biden”) bumper stickers on the back of trucks and cars across America. One photo, taken in November 2023, shows a partially torn bumper sticker supporting the Obama-Biden lineup.

These images were generated by AI-powered cameras mounted on cars and trucks, initially designed to capture license plates, but which are now photographing political lawn signs outside private homes, individuals wearing T-shirts with text, and vehicles displaying pro-abortion bumper stickers—all while recording the precise locations of these observations. Newly obtained data reviewed by WIRED shows how a tool originally intended for traffic enforcement has evolved into a system capable of monitoring speech protected by the US Constitution.

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Hidden Agendas: Beware of the Government’s Push for a Digital Currency

The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it.

The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer.

Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.

This is what comes of those $1.2 trillion spending bills: someone’s got to foot the bill.

Because the government’s voracious appetite for money, power and control has grown out of control, its agents have devised other means of funding its excesses and adding to its largesse through taxes disguised as fines, taxes disguised as fees, and taxes disguised as tolls, tickets and penalties.

No matter how much money the government pulls in, it’s never enough (case in point: the endless stopgap funding deals and constant ratcheting up of the debt ceiling), so the government has to keep introducing new plans to empower its agents to seize Americans’ bank accounts.

Make way for the digital dollar.

Whether it’s the central bank digital currency favored by President Biden, or the cryptocurrency being hawked by former President Trump, the end result will still be a form of digital money that makes it easier to track, control and punish the citizenry.

For instance, weeks before the Biden Administration made headlines with its support for a government-issued digital currency, the FBI and the Justice Department quietly moved ahead with plans for a cryptocurrency enforcement team (translation: digital money cops), a virtual asset exploitation unit tasked with investigating crypto crimes and seizing virtual assets, and a crypto czar to oversee it all.

No surprises here, of course.

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FBI Seeks Options for “Clearview AI” Type Facial Recognition Searches

The FBI has put out a request for information regarding (RFI) open-source facial recognition capabilities which it hopes to acquire in the future. The technology they are desiring would function similar to what is offered through companies like Clearview AI and PimEyes, both of which have been heavily scrutinized and sued for privacy violations.

Biometric Update reports that:

The agency explains the motivation behind its RFI as relating to major criminal, counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations: “Investigative leads are often derived from open-source images posted on social media profiles, Internet sites, and the dark web; for example, individuals often use social media to communicate, coordinate, and conduct criminal activity.”

Criminals wanted by the FBI and its partners are not always American residents with driver’s licenses, passports or criminal histories that would make their face biometrics available for searching.

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G20 Embraces Digital ID Dream While Critics Warn of Surveillance Nightmare

The G20 organization, currently chaired by Brazil and recently holding a ministerial meeting there, is wasting no time falling in line with all the key policies advanced by many governments, and globalist elites.

After promising to do its bit in the “war on disinformation” (to the delight of the host, Brazil, whose present government is accused of censorship), G20 member countries “pledged allegiance” to the digital ID and the overall scheme that incorporates it – namely, the digital public infrastructure (DPI).

Related: The 2024 Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda

DPI already counts the UN, the EU, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Gates Foundation as policy backers and vocal promoters. Now G20 ministers with digital economy portfolios have issued a joint declaration to express their “commitment” to both DPI and “combating disinformation”, and there is also inevitably the talk of “AI.”

On the digital ID/DPI front, the ministers speak of “inclusive” DPI, and the same attribute is attached to AI. The declaration “acknowledges” the importance of things like innovation and competition in a digital economy, among other things, at the same time “reaffirming” the importance of digital transformation based on DPI.

Boilerplate remarks are made about transparency and protection of privacy and personal data – but these are the major concerns cited by opponents of this type of scheme, along with the overall fear that they facilitate new, more dangerous forms of mass surveillance through centralization of personal information and tracking of people’s activities.

Referring to digital ID as “a basic DPI,” the declaration further speaks of the Sustainable Development Goals (a UN agenda) and one of its targets to be achieved by 2030 by using digital ID (as a tool of “inclusion”) to provide “legal identity for all.”

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Omnipresent AI cameras will ensure good behavior, says Larry Ellison

On Thursday, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison shared his vision for an AI-powered surveillance future during a company financial meeting, reports Business Insider. During an investor Q&A, Ellison described a world where artificial intelligence systems would constantly monitor citizens through an extensive network of cameras and drones, stating this would ensure both police and citizens don’t break the law.

Ellison, who briefly became the world’s second-wealthiest person last week when his net worth surpassed Jeff Bezos’ for a short time, outlined a scenario where AI models would analyze footage from security cameras, police body cams, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dash cams.

“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on,” Ellison said, describing what he sees as the benefits from automated oversight from AI and automated alerts for when crime takes place. “We’re going to have supervision,” he continued. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate person.”

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CBDCs Will Allow Police To Collect, Store Personal Data For Surveillance State, IMF Paper Reveals

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report recently that warns about the very serious privacy risks associated with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

According to the paper, entitled “Central Bank Digital Currency Data Use and Privacy Protection,” any central bank can use its CBDC system to collect all sorts of private information about users. It could then turn that private information over to the authorities for mass surveillance and possibly persecution reasons.

“CBDC data allows for commercial exploitation while also raising the possibility of state surveillance,” the IMF warns.

The way CBDCs work is that every time a transaction is made, all sorts of private information is transferred and uploaded into the blockchain as proof. That information is then open game for government authorities and anyone else to exploit it for ulterior purposes.

“Central bank digital currency (CBDC), as a digital form of central bank money, may allow for a ‘digital trail’ – data – to be collected and stored,” the paper explains.

“In contrast to cash, CBDC could be designed to potentially include a wealth of personal data, encapsulating transaction histories, user demographics, and behavioral patterns. Personal data could establish a link between counterparty identities and transactions.”

The paper goes on to explain that there is economic value in CBDCs due to the data trail it creates. Data is considered an “infrastructural resource that can be used by an unlimited number of users and for an unlimited number of purposes as an input to produce goods and services.”

“CBDC data could potentially be harvested by financial institutions that, in turn, could help develop data-driven businesses,” the paper continues.

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Digital ID And You

As the United Nations gears up for its Summit of the Future, to be held in September during the 79th General Assembly, I am offering a series on Agenda 2030, the agenda that the Summit is intended to advance. One of the outcome documents that the member states will sign is the Global Digital Compact. And one of the major elements of that agreement is the establishment of digital identity for every single person on the planet.

You’ve probably read about digital identity but you may not know what the entirety of the project entails and signifies. And you may be contributing to your own digital identity without knowing it. For reasons that will become clear, this is not something that you want to do. Read to the end to find out how you can elude the clutches of this globalist, totalitarian surveillance system.

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